The problem of going deeper will be increased abstraction.
URI persistence is an issue of the energy budget of the system.
In other words, it is an entropy quality and one could describe
it in terms of entropy measures. How does one measure the 'persistence
of a URI' unless it is done operationally? Do you really mean
'the persistence of the resource identified by the URI' or
'the persistence of the association of the name and the resource'?
I note the request for sources on the terms 'selectors'
and 'choices'. I am debating with myself on that request
because I fear driving this thread to more abstract terms
than the ones I had hoped to see removed. When I made the
reference, it was to evoke Shannon's abstraction of
the network architecture away from the semantics or meaning.
It is possible to reproduce the 'choices' at the receiver
without knowledge of the 'meaning' or semantics' of making
the choice (a selection). The only way I know to describe
this better will be as others have suggested, a layered
model where it is clear that each system layer builds on
the one below it. Now, what about the World Wide Web
as a system distinguishes it from the network as a layer?
Information space feels flimsy, but longer explanations
are worse. Should the abstract of the document paint
an understandable if undefined sense, or should it provide
the initial set of formal terms upon which all the rest
of the content relies?
How formal should this document be?
len
-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Connolly [mailto:connolly@w3.org]
* URI persistence
This bit about "strong social expectations" and "always a matter of
policy" seems more awkward and arbitrary than it should be. It
seems like there should be a simple, compelling argument
from information theory and economics about URI persistence
and ambiguity.